—Vicente F. Benítez R., JSD candidate at NYU School of Law and Constitutional Law Professor at Universidad de La Sabana

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect
publishes a curated reading list of developments in public law. “Developments”
may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent
scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the public law
blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for
our weekly feature on “What’s New in Public Law,” please email contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

The Supreme Court of Peru postponed a decision on
whether opposition leader Keiko Fujimori should be released from prison.

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico held that Pedro Pierluisi’s appointment as Governor
of Puerto Rico is unconstitutional. As a result, Wanda Vázquez Garced was sworn in as new Governor.

The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil blocked the governmental investigations against
journalist Glenn Greenwald as they constituted ‘an unambiguous act of
censorship’.

The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a
challenge against a decision issued by a provincial high court that upheld the firing
of a newborn’s parent due to their refusal to take an out-of-province work
assignment.

The Supreme Court of India upheld a regulation that grants ‘financial creditor’
status to homebuyers in those situations when the construction company –in
charge of building housing– faces financial difficulties.

The Constitutional Court of Armenia requested an advisory opinion to the European Court of Human
Rights on the Criminal Code’s provision that criminalizes the overthrowing of
the constitutional order.

The Supreme Court of India refused to issue an interim decision lifting
some of the restrictions currently imposed on Jammu and Kashmir.

The Supreme Tribunal of Justice of
Venezuela decided to strip three opposition deputies of
their congressional immunity.

The Supreme Court of Israel overruled a decision of a
lower court that allowed the gender segregation of the attendees to a
government-organized concert.

The Constitutional Court of Colombia held that commercial establishments must
permit the use of their restrooms not only to children, pregnant women or older
adults but also to people with disabilities, regardless of whether they are
customers of the said establishments.

The Constitutional Court of South Africa heard a challenge against an electoral
statute that prevents independent candidates from running for elections.

The Constitutional Chamber (Sala IV) of the Supreme
Court of Costa Rica ruled that the government infringed the Constitution
because it did not take effective and proportionate measures to lift the road
blockades implemented by truck drivers and students.

The Supreme Court of Mexico ordered the country’s Heath Department to regulate
the medical use of marijuana.

The Supreme Court of Gibraltar concluded that an Iranian
tanker seized in the coasts of Gibraltar is free to sail.

In the News

The Parliament of Myanmar approved the Constitutional
Amendment Committee’s Report, which included nearly 4,000 recommendations to
amend the Constitution.

China has described some of the
anti-government protests in Hong Kong as ‘terrorism’.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human
Rights Michelle Bachelet urged Hong Kong to investigate the use of
excessive force against protesters.

The President of, India Ram Nath Kovind,
signed an Act that increases the number of
Supreme Court judges from 31 to 34.

US Attorney General William Barr recognized the existence of serious
irregularities at the jail where Jeffrey Epstein died and promised that the
Department of Justice would investigate the matter.

The Law Association of Zambia asked the Speaker of the National Assembly to
halt any parliamentary discussions on the Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 10.
This request is grounded on the fact that the Constitutional Court is currently
reviewing the constitutionality this Bill. Despite this, Brian Mundubile, Chief
Whip of the ruling Patriotic Front Party, said the National Assembly would continue
holding discussions on the amendment proposal.

The Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, pledged to propose and speed up a Diet debate
on some amendments to the Constitution.

A Federal Prosecutor in Brazil filed a claim to prevent the appointment of
President Bolsonaro’s son as new Brazilian ambassador to the United States.

The Constituent Assembly of Venezuela (controlled by
the regime of Nicolas Maduro) announced it plans to summon
a committee to decide whether to bring forward the legislative elections initially
scheduled for December 2020.

In Liberia, the Elections Coordinating Committee (ECC)
expressed its support to
President George Weah’s proposed constitutional amendments aimed at reducing
the tenure of the Presidency, Senate and House of Representatives.

The Ethics Commissioner of Canada, Mario Dion, released a report that
concluded that Prime Minister Trudeau exerted improper influence in the
SNC-Lavalin case.

The Government of Nepal is preparing legislation to
incorporate the Geneva Conventions into domestic law.

The Italian Senate postponed a motion of no
confidence that could trigger a snap election of Parliament.

The President of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman, refused to appoint the new Minister of Culture nominated
by PM Andrej Babis.

The President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, proposed to move the
capital city of the country from Jakarta to the island of Borneo.

Amidst deep criticisms coming from Congress and other
opposition parties, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, asserted that the
abrogation of article 370 would consolidate the spirit of “One Nation, One
Constitution”.

New Scholarship

Mary L. Volcansek, Judicialization of Politics or Politicization of the Courts in New
Democracies?, in Christine Landfried (ed.), Judicial
Power – How Constitutional Courts Affect Political Transformations (2019) (arguing
that constitutional courts that push the margins of their authority
aggressively may lead to the politicization of the courts, which may, in turn,
result in an erosion of judicial legitimacy, particularly in new democracies)

Ana Micaela Alterio, Reactive vs structural approach: A public law response to populism, Global Constitutionalism (2019) (advancing a public
law response to populism involving new institutional systems that generate strong
participatory mechanisms to incorporate ‘the popular’, and using the new Latin
American Constitutionalism as an example of both the potentialities and
difficulties of designing institutional systems in public law)

Kim Lane Scheppele, Autocracy under Cover of the Transnational Legal Order, in Gregory Shaffer, Tom Ginsburg & Terence C.
Halliday (eds.), Constitution-Making and Transnational Legal Order (2019) (arguing
that the constitutional consulting community has created a particular form of
“transnational legal order” that has allowed the new autocrats to escape
detection – and even to thrive)

Maayan Geva, Military Lawyers Making Law: Israel’s Governance of the West Bank and
Gaza, Law & Social Inquiry (2019) (examining
Israeli military lawyers’ practice of international humanitarian law (IHL)
revolving around the West Bank and Gaza, and interrogating these lawyers’
work—the stories that they tell about law, their legal interpretations and
their interactions with military decision-makers)

Pranoto Iskandar, Religious constitutionalism: An Indonesian-esque interpretive venture, Oxford University Comparative Law Forum (2019) (arguing
that the religious-friendly model that is based on pan-religious values has
failed, and showing how Indonesia’s temporary accommodation of religion as a
solution to the Islamists insistence has somewhat become fossilised in the
political system)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

The International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism invites submissions for its conference on “Constitution-Making and Constitutional Change” to be held at the University of Texas Law School on January 17-18, 2020. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2019.

University of Belgrade Faculty of Law and Serbian Association for Legal and Social Philosophy (IVR Serbia) call for papers for their upcoming Sixth Student Conference in Theory and Philosophy of Law on the topic ‘Judiciary between law and politics’. The conference will take place on the 6th of December 2019. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2019.

Cornell Law School, the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell and the Program in Ethics & Public Life co-host the first Cornell Conference in Philosophy of Law to be held in Ithaca, NY on May 15-17, 2020, and invite interested scholars to submit their paper proposals on or before 31 December 2019.

The Institute for International Humanitarian Studies (CERIC, UMR DICE 7318, AMIDEX) of Aix-en-Provence Law School welcomes submissions for the forthcoming INSIDE Workshop in Compliance Theories in International Human Rights Law to be held at Aix-en-Provence Law School on 2 April 2020. Proposals must be sent by September 20, 2019.

The Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law calls for papers for its conference titled ‘Mixed Arbitral Tribunals, 1919–1930: An Experiment in the International Adjudication of Private Rights’. Submissions must be sent by October 1, 2019.

The Universitá Degli Studi di Napoli Federico II calls for applicants for six four-year funded PhD positions in global history and governance. The deadline to send applications is September 2, 2019.

The Chevening Network in Brazil and Oxford University invite scholars to submit proposals for their conference ‘Global Security Challenges of the 21st Century: New Problems, Innovative Solutions’. Authors are invited to submit a paper or an extended abstract no later than 15 September 2019.

The University of Connecticut School of Law (UConn Law) is pleased to honor Professor Richard Kay and, to celebrate his work, it will hold a conference titled “Original Constitutionalist: Reconstructing Richard Kay’s Scholarship” on September 13, 2019. Register, please, by September 6, 2019.

The Graduate Institute Geneva and the Institute for Global Law & Policy at Harvard Law School, in the framework of their new collaborative initiative ‘The Global Scholars Academy’, welcome applications for a three-day intensive scholars Workshop. The Workshop’s themes are ‘Power and Domination in a Globalized World’ and ‘Social Justice: The Challenges of Poverty, Inequality and Development’. Applications and recommendation letter(s) are due by September 20, 2019.

The WZB Berlin Social Science Center is offering a position for a Research Fellow (post-doc) (f/m/x) at the Center for Global Constitutionalism headed by Professor Mattias Kumm. Applications must be sent by September 16, 2019.

The student chapter of the American Constitution Society and Law Review at Barry University School of Law and Texas A&M University School of Law are hosting the Fifth Annual Constitutional Law Scholars Forum. The Constitutional Law Scholars Forum invites scholarly proposals on constitutional law at any stage of pre-publication development, from the germination of an idea to the editing stage. The deadline to submit proposals is December 1, 2019.

The London School of Economics (LSE) calls for abstracts for its Conference ‘State Accountability under Private, Public, and International Law’, which will take place on November 9, 2019. Interested scholars should send an abstract of no more than 750 words by 30 August 2019.

The Cambridge Law Review, an independent academic journal run by students of the University of Cambridge, invites submissions for the second issue of Volume IV. The window for submissions is open from 01 June until 22 September 2019.

The ASIL International Law in Domestic Courts Annual Workshop will take place on 6 December 2019 at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. Interested scholars are invited to send their abstracts by September 6, 2019.

The University of Manchester Law School welcomes applications from candidates with expertise in the UK, European, or global constitutional law for a Chair in Constitutional Law. Applications must be submitted by 12 September 2019.

The British Academy invites interested early-career researchers to apply to its Postdoctoral Fellowships. Selected postdoctoral fellows will conduct research in the framework of the areas of interest of the Constitution Unit.

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (in cooperation with the Minerva Center for Human Rights in Israel) invites applications for a position to start in October 2019 as a Research Fellow (PhD student) in Transitional Justice with Professor Anne Peters. The application deadline is September 15, 2019.

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